Today is a lovely day, indeed a day to celebrate. Doubtless first and foremost for you ladies and gentlemen who are today acquiring German citizenship, who are becoming German, with all the rights and obligations that entails. Among many other things, I imagine it is a day you want to celebrate because it marks the end of what has, in some cases, been a long and not always easy journey.

You have achieved something on which you embarked some considerable time ago, something which required quite a lot of effort and trouble, and, above all, often a great deal of patience. So for you today is absolutely a reason to celebrate.

And I am delighted to be here at this ceremony, and to have the pleasure of presenting you with your naturalisation certificate myself in a few moments. As Federal President, I cannot do this at every one of the thousands, tens of thousands, of naturalisations that, happily, are finalised in our country every year. But from time to time, like today, I make a very deliberate decision to attend one of these ceremonies.

I have various reasons for doing so. Firstly, as head of state, I expressly wish to make the point just how important and right it is that people who have been living in our country for a long time and who want to remain here can become naturalised citizens. Only then do they completely belong, can they vote or stand for election, can they fully participate in political life, can they put democracy into practice and assume greater responsibility in this democracy.

By attending this ceremony, I also want to make clear how grateful all of us here in our country should be for these naturalisations, for the fact that people from various backgrounds are actually deciding to commit themselves utterly to this their new home. And it is also important to me to say this: without these naturalisations, our country would not only be poorer in many respects, but would also have far less of a chance of a bright future. Yes, we do need clearer rules for migration to Europe, but the full truth is this: Germany will continue to depend on immigration. And I would hope that everyone who has become a citizen of our country feels included when we say "We Germans".

So today is a day of celebration not only for you, the stars of the day’s festivities, but – just as every naturalisation ceremony ought to be – it is also a day of celebration for all of us, including those of us who have been German for slightly longer than you who are acquiring citizenship today. You come from very different places: Eritrea, Syria, the Philippines, Ukraine, Côte d’Ivoire, Jordan, Georgia, the United States, Iraq, Portugal, India and Morocco – in other words, from four of the world’s continents. Today you are all saying a very clear and public, a resolute and well-considered "Yes" to your new homeland, Germany.

More and more people are doing so. And even more would like to do so, according to all the statistics. In some places, the number of naturalisation applications has doubled or, as in Cologne, tripled, with the result that in recent years there has indeed been a huge burden on the officials and authorities of some cities and municipalities. In many places – though by no means everywhere – people have had, or are having, to wait a long time.

But I am quite certain that the majority of officials responsible for processing naturalisation applications do their utmost to stick to the principle that those applications should be processed as carefully as necessary and as quickly as possible.

For our country, this and every naturalisation ceremony is a day of celebration because for every new German citizen it also means "I am committing myself to the Basic Law this country has given itself". Every decision to become a naturalised citizen is at the same time a commitment to our constitution and to the values on which it is based, the values it expresses, the values it seeks always to protect.

You all know that our constitution was a response to terrible crimes, crimes that took place in this country and for which this country was responsible – war and dictatorship, contempt for human life, hatred and disdain for others, even persecution and murder.

"Never again" is written into all the decisive articles of our Basic Law. That is why freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, freedom of belief and religion, freedom of science and the arts are some of the non-negotiable values set out in this constitution.

Even though the present day is in many respects different from the time in which this constitution was drawn up, our Basic Law is proving its value, in particular today, in particular in the changed societal reality we experience on a daily basis.

You know that, you experience how,  our society is characterised by great diversity, by difference. This is thanks not only to the people who have come here from all over the world, with their different cultural or religious backgrounds. It is also thanks to the fact that, in today’s world, more and more people have and seize the chance to live their lives in their own special way, to pursue different lifestyles – and of course have the right to do so.

In these circumstances, there is much that cannot simply be taken as read, that has not become established through custom or tradition. And that is why coexistence is not without tensions. It needs an ongoing process of understanding, and this process needs to be peaceful and fair. And we can definitely say this: having proven its worth for decades, the best foundation for peaceful coexistence in the midst of differences, in the midst of confrontations and conflicts, is our Basic Law.

So it is worthwhile standing up for it, for the values that shape it, for the tolerance it demands and guarantees, for the freedom it safeguards.

This commitment is without doubt also the best way to live up to the special responsibility that arises from our history, especially the history of antisemitism, racist fanaticism and genocide, a responsibility which we as Germans have and from which no one can slip away. Whoever becomes a German takes on our country’s historical legacy. Every German must know about Auschwitz and must know what made Auschwitz possible. Every German must regard the remembrance of this as a permanent obligation on us all, and must accept the responsibility that stems from it.

I know that just now many people who have come to our country, or whose parents came to our country, fear a rise of racism and of right-wing extremist views and voices, and are worried about their future in this country. We must take these concerns seriously and must resolutely counter hatred and discrimination, as a state, it goes without saying, but also as a society.

However, with many people becoming naturalised citizens precisely at this point in time, I regard this also as a sign that they have confidence in this country and this society and that they want to become truly at home here. And that is a wonderful message for me and for us all. We are all grateful for it, and I think we can all be a little proud as well.

I said earlier that this is a day of celebration for all of us. I do not think there is any city in Germany readier to celebrate than this one. Here in Cologne, anything quickly becomes an excuse for some fun and celebration.

You probably do not need to become a German to become a real citizen of Cologne. The opposite, more like. But why is it that one can feel so easily accepted here in Cologne? Why does one so quickly have the feeling of belonging, at least if one doesn’t act completely weirdly?

Perhaps it is thanks to the relaxed self-confidence one encounters here in Cologne. No other city – at least not in the world Cologne is familiar with – has more songs to celebrate itself. The ones we non-Cologne people know, from Carnival time for instance, are probably just a tiny percentage.

I think this brings us on the trail of one of the fundamental secrets of successful integration: integration succeeds well where the prevalent atmosphere is one of relaxed self-confidence, a calm sense of identity and one’s own worth. Of course, this might be found elsewhere, too – in Berlin or Leipzig, Hamburg and Rostock, or Munich, and some might say even in Cologne’s traditional rival Düsseldorf.

By the way, perhaps more than any other German city, this ancient city of Cologne, established by the Romans, has seen people arrive from afar, some of them leaving again, many staying. This is true of the whole of the Rhineland, about which the Lower Rhenish poet Hanns-Dieter Hüsch, snappily sliding himself into a centuries-old history, once wrote:

The Romans were here / The Burgundians were here / The Dutch were here / The Spanish were here / The Swedish were here / The Lorrainians were here / The Austrians were here / The French were here / The Prussians were here / And I was here.

New citizens of Germany, I wish you that same joy, that same self-confidence, that same naturalness, when, now and in the future, you say "And I am here".